31 replies to this topic

[nomad]

That'd be a tough way to run a PC these days with that low amount of ram in it

I agree but technically it will run and he did say his PC was 6 years old. 512MB was really good back then and 256MB was a very common config but not too useful these days.

[Oldschooler81]

Nomad you're right. My bad I did mean megs, lol. It does run pretty good all things considered, but I guess 6 years is old in computer terms no matter what.

Another general question - is it typically better to upgrade or just buy a new computer? My dad used to have a 1995 Gateway that this guy upgraded for him in '99 and it got a couple more good years out of it.

[nomad]

Nomad you're right. My bad I did mean megs, lol. It does run pretty good all things considered, but I guess 6 years is old in computer terms no matter what.

Another general question - is it typically better to upgrade or just buy a new computer? My dad used to have a 1995 Gateway that this guy upgraded for him in '99 and it got a couple more good years out of it.

Well you could probably find some RAM on the net but what you need is so old it will most likely be used and questionable. You may get another year or 2 out of it.

But you could buy a netbook for like $300 bucks and get a 10x gain in performance and ease of use. Then you can watch Youtube! Save those pennies!

[eVader]

Nomad you're right. My bad I did mean megs, lol. It does run pretty good all things considered, but I guess 6 years is old in computer terms no matter what.

Another general question - is it typically better to upgrade or just buy a new computer? My dad used to have a 1995 Gateway that this guy upgraded for him in '99 and it got a couple more good years out of it.

You could upgrade the RAM however that old PC-2100 or PC-2700 can be expensive unless you buy it used and then its a question of how good is it after all these years. The $30-100 prices suggested are for current generation systems.

I have a 2003 or 2004 PC although it has 1.5GB of RAM and does pretty good for general use (web, email, Quicken) but certainly a snail compared to dual core and the new Core i3, i5, & i7 platforms. Consider a new system vs. memory because for $449 you can get a kickin system & 21.5" LCD from Dell http://www.gotapex.com/

Bill, with a Photoshop project like that, you need at least 2GB and preferably more. CPU clock speed and processor power will help but RAM is key for the number and size of applications\projects open at any given time. Hopefully Dave's suggestion tweaking PS memory usage will do it too.

[mylo]

I make key rings out of 256meg PC-2100 dimms. That's a "minimum" upgrade that should be done today for ~$20 bucks. I also even doubt he's in PC-2100 You can buy a 512meg PC-2100 at freakin' Wal-Mart for $27!
http://www.walmart.c...-Module/1818379

But I bet you have a few slots open. Pickup some (3?) 256meg DIMM's for less than $10/pc and quadruple your RAM.

Here's 2x256 PC2100's for $8 bucks:
http://sacramento.cr...1652535766.html
I bet you could talk him down to $7

Upgrading is good, but yeah, there reaches a point where you might aswell just buy a new set.

I don't understand why people think "upgrade" and for some reason that jumps straight to throwing away their nice case, power supply, and recently upgraded hard drive, going through a full OS install, going to Vista (nothing justifies going to Vista), etc.

I phase in upgrades. CPU/Memory, Drive(s), Video. Whenever my PS dies I usually upgrade it, too. I reinstall Windows on a regular "once it starts sucking" cycle.

I've had the same case for 10 years. Last year was drives, so I've now got some nice fat storage. Next year will be CPU/Memory to bring my speed back up to check.

With this process, you only spend a few hundred every upgrade and end up with top-of-the-line equipment for a while without spending the thousands it takes to get an entirely brand-new PC.

[Bill Z]

Photoshop is usually pretty good about large memory management. I agree, tweak it's preferences. Don't bother with pagefile. If you're swapping badly in PS, you're hurting.

Are you sure it's memory-bound, or are you thrashing CPU?

If your slow operations are Opening and Saving the file, and once open it's usable, you might be IO-bound. One trick would be to put the file on flash.

One thought; you're not loading this file from a server, are you? You have a local copy, right? Saving 1gb over CIFS will take minutes.

Even then, saving a file on a tiny-slow internal laptop drive is gonna suck, but it shouldn't suck "minutes". A gig isn't THAT big.

Yeah, make sure it's local, then try putting it on flash disk.

Thanks guys, on monday I'll see about tweaking the preferences. The file is local (folder is on the desktop) For the most part, once open it works OK, depends upon what I'm doing. Certain functions take it awhile (there it might be CPU limited), but cut & pasting of smaller images into it works fine. Turning layers on & off and other stuff works fine. I'll double check what my ram is also on Monday, but I think it's 2 Gig.

[Bill Z]

Thanks guys, on monday I'll see about tweaking the preferences. The file is local (folder is on the desktop) For the most part, once open it works OK, depends upon what I'm doing. Certain functions take it awhile (there it might be CPU limited), but cut & pasting of smaller images into it works fine. Turning layers on & off and other stuff works fine. I'll double check what my ram is also on Monday, but I think it's 2 Gig.

I do have 2 Gigs of RAM.
I changed the preferences for memory usage from 50% to 90%.
It still pegged the meter on RAM usage while opening and didn't seem to speed up the file opening process at all. I'll probably just suffer with it until I'm done with my mosaic.

[JLS]

You probably don't want to spend the money but the answer is SSD's and separate drives. End of story.

Ram is cool but not gonna solve your problem for the opening and closing of files in photoshop.

[Bill Z]

You probably don't want to spend the money but the answer is SSD's and separate drives. End of story.

Ram is cool but not gonna solve your problem for the opening and closing of files in photoshop.

Thanks, as this is a rather unique requirement right now that I'm dealing with such a large image and we are a small business that operates on a tight budget, not spending money is the end solution for me.

[JLS]

I realize that. I'm just trying to tell you the answer. Without that you can tinker all you want but I imagine your wasting your time mostly. I'm sorry that's the way it is but thats the way it is. Increasing ram settings etc might help a tiny bit but that's the limit.

Although I can't understand why the file would be so large. I imagine you have alot of unnecessary stuff going on in photoshop. My family owns a sign shop as well and I can tell you that I wrap entire vehicles with files alot smaller...

If you ever want some advice with photoshop stuff feel free to send me the file via yousendit or something and I'll be glad to help you out...

[JLS]

another tiny thing to do that will decrease the file size is to turn off the max compatibility option when saving...

[Bill Z]

another tiny thing to do that will decrease the file size is to turn off the max compatibility option when saving...

It's got 5 layers.
And it is 150 pixels per inch and 107 x 87.56 inches so that's 16,050 x 13,134 pixels or 210,800,700 pixels. How many bits required for "millions of colors" per pixel?

[JLS]

It depends on a million factors. How many pixels being taken up in each layer, grouping, etc.

I'm not saying that you positively have un-necisarry stuff going on. I'm just saying that often times people have alot of little things going on in their photoshop files (like grouping) that could be approached differently reducing file size. Sometimes people keep a safety net in their layers that takes up a large about on file size and really isn't needed as it can be recreated in seconds. Max compatibility is also another one of those little things that alot of people check and that can add a couple hundred mb's or more for no reason.

[Bill Z]

It depends on a million factors. How many pixels being taken up in each layer, grouping, etc.

I'm not saying that you positively have un-necisarry stuff going on. I'm just saying that often times people have alot of little things going on in their photoshop files (like grouping) that could be approached differently reducing file size. Sometimes people keep a safety net in their layers that takes up a large about on file size and really isn't needed as it can be recreated in seconds. Max compatibility is also another one of those little things that alot of people check and that can add a couple hundred mb's or more for no reason.

I don't see any "max compatibility" box to check. Mode is CMYK, and I am saving the file as .psd format. I know it would be a lot smaller as a .jpg

Oh joy, I just got word back from the graphics shop and his suggestions means I get to more or less start all over, but a lot of the work I've already done I'll get to steal from, so all is not lost. I found just getting rid of the background and the bottom images, my file shrunk down to 250Meg and it opens and closes much much faster, so it truly is limited resources. Well, Hopefully I'll be done with it this week.

[JLS]

I don't see any "max compatibility" box to check. Mode is CMYK, and I am saving the file as .psd format. I know it would be a lot smaller as a .jpg

Max compatibility is under File>Prefs>File Handling. I'm not sure which version of PS this feature was added so if you have an older version that might be why your not seeing it. In CS4 it pops up every time you initially save your psd via file>save as.

Curious, which graphics shop are you working with? Local in Folsom? Wondering if it's my families (would be funny)....

Not sure why your saving as a CYMK. You should save that for the shop typically as the actual printers have alot better RGB>CYMK conversion than photoshop and typically they send it out as RGB to the things anyways. Always test your file via Image>Mode>CMYK to make sure the results are livable but then undo it. Unless the shop requests you to do otherwise...

Yes, when working with photoshop on slow machines it's best to work with as little layers as possible and add backgrounds etc at the end...

Why are you having to start over?